Gamescom 2024 | Read more Gamescom coverage from the Game Developer team right here, including interviews from the show, analysis of leading developer trends, and more.
Gonzalez's experience shows how actors and performers can inform all areas of development.
Humberly González is living her dream. The longtime Ubisoft voice actor and motion capture performer is now the voice and face of Star Wars Outlaws protagonist Kay Vess. Not only is it her first lead role, it's a role that lets her recreate her childhood, playing with Star Wars toys, and imagining she was one of the characters up on the silver screen.
She's had a lot of time to dream since then. But when push came to shove, what is it she wanted to bring to a role like this? Kay's personality and appearance were being cooked up by the rest of the team at Ubisoft. With such a high-stakes license on the line, was there room for her to explore the character and build on everyone else's work?
Yep. As she told Game Developer at Gamescom 2024, her time with Kay Vess saw the character shift from snarky and confident to someone who's more of a "dreamer"—honing what would make for a compelling lead for Star Wars Outlaws.
According to González, Kay originally was written as more "cynical" and more "jokey" before she came in, describing a character that sounds like Nathan Drake and his many quippy peers in the land of video game protagonists. "When they got me in the role, they noticed that I brought a bit more heart and vulnerability and because she is a rookie scoundrel," she recalled.
Ubisoft's made a lot of hay about how Star Wars Outlaws fulfills the "scoundrel" Star Wars fantasy—a role tailored for the fans who connected more with the Han Solos of the series than the various Jedi protagonists. Luke Skywalker, Anakin, and Rey were all chosen heroes, but Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and other supporting characters embodied a sense of freedom, adventure, and loose obligation to morality.
"There's a different type of story here in comparison to Lando Calrissian or Han Solo," González said. "They have the expertise, they're confident, they have the swagger...they're almost too confident."
Kay, by contrast, is living through what you might say is her first day on the job. The game begins with her trying to score enough cash to leave the casino city of Canto Bight, and her adventure embodies a "fake it until you make it" attitude.
González said that direction let her bring "more of herself" to the performance. "I know what it means to put on a mask, and pretend like I know what I'm doing, and use my charm—Kay Vess has a lot of that."
In other words, González brought back a little bit of the Luke, Anakin, and Rey energy—characters whose stories all began with them dreaming of getting out and seeing a bigger world.
"She's a dreamer," González said affectionately.
Because this was González's first lead role, Outlaws gave her the most amount of work she'd had on an Ubisoft production. Good for her paycheck—but also demanding on the body. She explained how Ubisoft's motion capture process was designed to give actors time to rehearse and rest to make it through months of filming.
"The wonderful thing about motion capture, in comparison to TV and film, is that it's a very balanced lifestyle," she said. "We work nine to five, we always get our evenings off...which means that you do get a lot of rest."
The team would rehearse a week's worth of performances on Monday, then spend Tuesday through Thursday shooting scene after scene. "The scenes take maybe a little longer, and when you shoot them, they're a bit more linear like in theater because we're not cutting in between [takes]. Because it's all mocap, and there's no sets or hair or makeup or costumes, you focus on the work a lot more."
Vess said as a motion capture performer, she's used to acting against "nothing," and quizzing directors for information on what will be onscreen in the final game. But getting to work with Camille Loiselle-D'Aragon and her handmade Nix puppet was a particular delight. "That was a special moment," she said, recalling how Loiselle-D'Aragon would maneuver the puppet into jumping on her lap and other "visceral" interactions.
"That was a very special moment," she recalled, "because I know that we don't often get that as motion capture performers."
González, a Candian actor, isn't a member of SAG-AFTRA and thus isn't part of the ongoing strike against developers for their alleged refusal to bargain with actors on protections against exploitative use of generative AI. But she supports her peers, including actors like Dee Bradley Baker (who voices Nix and Jabba the Hutt in Outlaws). "Voice actors can play so many roles in one game," she said, nodding to his multiple performances. "If they're only saying, 'we'll protect your likeness,' that doesn't really work."
González has had to grapple with another challenge facing video game actors today: the threat of online harassment. In her case, it's largely manifested as part of a racist and sexist backlash to Outlaws, which is the first Ubisoft open-world game in recent history to not let players select a player character from one of two genders.
She's not particularly concerned with the backlash (echoing comments made by creative director Julian Gerighty in our conversation with him at Gamescom), telling Game Developer that she does "zero engagement" with players who have nothing "constructive" to say, preferring to interact with fans like those she'd come to Gamescom to meet.
She did say however, that the persistence of said campaigns shows why representing characters like her is important. "Having someone like me, who's an immigrant, who's queer, who's a Latina, who's a female protagonist in one of the biggest franchises in the world...I understand people are protective of those worlds, but we need to have representations of what [our] world actually looks like," she said.
Kay Vess may be a dreamer setting her way out in the galaxy, but it's clear González is ready for whatever the game industry throws at her. Her experience shows what developers can learn from their performing peers, and spotlights why protecting their presence in our business is better for everyone.
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